November 26, 2025
Window Wars: Border Patrol
Alan.app – Add a Border to macOS Active Window
Tiny app draws a border around your active window—fans ask why Apple hasn’t
TLDR: Alan adds a clear border to the active Mac window, a simple fix users say Apple should’ve built in. Comments flip between praising the clarity and debating Alan vs JankyBorders, with accessibility concerns and jokes about the app’s “human” name making this tiny tool feel big.
A tiny Mac app called Alan just drew a literal line around your chaos: it adds a bold border to the window you’re actually using, with customizable color and thickness for light or dark mode. Simple, right? The community is acting like someone finally turned the lights on. The loudest voice: “macOS Tahoe” ruined contrast and made windows blur together. One commenter even called the design “hostile to users,” while others groaned that staring at those three tiny dots in the corner to see which window is active is a daily pain. The vibe? Love for Alan, side-eye for Apple.
Then the drama: is Alan the new sheriff, or just another deputy? Fans quickly name‑dropped JankyBorders and asked, “Any reason to use this over JankyBorders?” Power users bragged about running borders with tiling tools like Aerospace, wondering why this basic visibility feature isn’t baked into Accessibility. Meanwhile, the crowd got soft over the app’s name—“Alan” feels like a helpful coworker, not software. There’s even a Terminal trick to hide its Dock icon for the minimalist crew, and yes, the build is notarized (Apple’s way of saying “it’s safe”). In short: people want contrast, clarity, and choice—and they’re not waiting for Cupertino to deliver it.
Key Points
- •Alan is a macOS app that draws a border around the active window to improve visibility.
- •The app includes preferences to set border width and colors for light and dark modes.
- •A notarized version of Alan is available for download, and a demo video is provided.
- •Users can hide Alan’s Dock icon by setting a hidden preference via Terminal.
- •The Terminal command to hide the Dock icon is: defaults write studio.retina.Alan hideDock -bool true, followed by a relaunch.